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What is life worth? One innocent life! To date we record 128 died from the attacks in Paris. Do these 128 even know why they lived, and then died? Of course they knew that one day they would die, but did any of them expect it would be then; so soon because of a group of crazy madmen or women?

Each human life is given dignity by our Creator; what or whoever we think he or she or it is! If we can agree and accept this premise by the UN Declaration of Human Rights; it is now a universally adopted doctrine of and about human life. Thereby the value or worth of any human life is countless. Counting involves numbers vide numerical value but it is only one way to appreciate value; there are many others. Some items of value in life are priceless.

What is human dignity?

Most worldviews take life and liberty for granted, unless we have occasion to suddenly lose it for various plausible reasons. But, surely, it cannot only be that such human dignity is defined only by its absence, or through its denial.

What then is a positive definition of human dignity? First, it is a personal and individual experience of the flowering and nurturing of all God-given abilities within a human person to live out that destiny. Secondly, such an experience is truly only possible when one has achieved independence of personal thought and life. The age or youthfulness is the age of innocence.

The age of individual freedom is usually defined by the age of consent (for example to marry) or the age of intent (for example when one is allowed to drive a vehicle). It varies with cultures and communities. Or, equally importantly, for most modern citizens of nation-states, this could be the age of voting defined in any country.

Thirdly and finally, it is important that each person can apply such a life and skills for personal maximisation of human potential through global opportunities for such.

Do groups or communities have a dignity?

We hear the statement that “Malay dignity is being threatened!” Is there such a ‘thing’ called ‘Malay Dignity’? To begin with, through my studies, I faced a number of problems in defining human dignity as a simple but personal concept. My first problem was ‘how to define it without making it a thingy’, or a material idea as if it was a thing. The big word for this process is called ‘reification’. It refers to the process of making things out of non-things.

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Let me explain further this possible reification of the ‘Malay Dignity’. Malay dignity is not a thing to be possessed or owned by any group. It cannot defined by any one individual whether king or pauper. Neither can it become the stewardship agenda for Parliament, or the Conference of Rulers, or even the Malay Rulers of the Nine States of the Federation of Malaya.

While dignity can be located and defined in the personal experience, as I did in my thesis, what or how would one define Malay dignity? When we ask this question, it actually raises an even more important question, who is really Malay? Books have been written on this issue and many scholarly studies have been undertaken to do this.

Based on my studies and attempts to define dignity in the workplace, I am clear that human dignity is a personal spiritual quality of human life wherein all human beings are required to be valued and fully appreciated as ends in themselves and never only as a means to any other end or motive.

The closest one can get to this concept of dignity of any ethnicity or race, is if that group or community maintains and conduct themselves within a particular and identifiable culture of conduct, which then can be called their culture of existence.

Therefore, some studies in the US have demonstrated that sports teams like the Boston Celtics or the Dallas Cowboys have such a definable culture of existence which makes them a team to be reckoned with, over many seasons of sports competitions.

In my lived experience in Malaysia some ethnicities have such a clearly definable culture and conduct, although even though these values and traits are slowly being lost because of modernism and globalisation.

Is the ‘Muslim Ummah’ a community?

Community is a big sociological word. Wikipedia defines community as ‘a group or network of persons who are connected (objectively) to each other by relatively durable social relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties, and who mutually define that relationship (subjectively) as important to their social identity and social practice’.

Therefore my question to all Muslims in Malaysia, do you think the Muslim Ummah is one homogenous and common values-based community? Again, Wikipedia defines ‘ummah’ as follows:

“Ummah is an Arabic word meaning ‘nation’ or ‘community’. It is distinguished from Sha’b which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra-national community with a common history. It is a synonym for ummat al-Islamiyah (the Islamic Nation), and it is commonly used to mean the collective community of Islamic peoples.”

I once asked a Muslim colleague of mine, if you had to choose the truth of any matter of life, or issues and concerns as citizens, would the concept of ‘ummah’ be the most defining and underlying paradigm? Without hesitation he said, “Yes!”

Other’s human dignity does not matter?

Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the Palestinian state, or non-state issue or concern, was the source and cause of the Parisian murders. While I can accept it as a political statement; I cannot accept such a glib treatment of the death of 128 innocent victims; each with human dignity but whose destiny ended rather suddenly, thanks to some poor theology.

Moreover he is a medical doctor and committed to mercy ministries. Therefore, I do not accept rather his political response. The categorical response I expect from any other Malaysian is to condemn the murders by those crazy madmen and women. These are not human beings; they were animals in what they believe and did. Only condemnation by every Malaysian is acceptable for we are also a multi-ethnic nation-state.